Christmas is here

Wednesday 12.17.2008 09:49PM

And some rare footage of Sheryl, Suzi, Isha, Shawn, and myself has been revealed for the first time ever!

I've got at least one more Christmas-y blog I'm working on, so stay tuned. :)

Tagged: friends / christmas
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Thankful

Friday 11.28.2008 01:42AM

I have been very blessed to have some great people I call friend in my life. Over the years, life changes have taken some of us different directions, but there has consistently been a group of people around to love and support me. Especially recently, I have received a lot of support about my “transparency” and it has been a big help.

This past Sunday, many of these friends had a pitch-in Thanksgiving dinner. It was great fun to get together and share what we are grateful for. My mom and stepdad were able to come, too, so I was glad to have both my direct family and “second family” there. We will definitely have to do it again.

Two people I am particularly thankful for this year are Sheryl and Isha. Sheryl and I have been friends going on 10 years now and she has consistently been there for me. She is one of the “roots” in my life and I really appreciate that. Isha and I have become best friends this past year and have been tested with highs and lows in each of our lives. She is the first person in my life that I have really worried about losing their life, so I am very thankful that she is alive.

I have been trying to be more purposefully expressive of my thankfulness and I think it has improved my life. It certainly impacts my attitude – I recommend it. Here are some of the “thankfuls” I have posted on twitter.

Tagged: life / friends
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Little connections

Friday 08.15.2008 02:25AM

Back on August 3rd I took an afternoon trip with Greg, Ian, and Alex down to Bloomington to visit our friend Isha. She showed us around her hometown and we stopped to visit her famous grandma, Pat Lucas. She has always gushed about how awesome her grandma is, and I think we all realized pretty quickly that it was true. Pat was very sweet and funny, and it was obvious she has a big heart. She worked with the homeless for about 30 to 40 years and did everything she could to help people.

It was fascinating to see how alike she and Isha are. In fact, it came up when Ian laughed at something – Ian has a rather boisterous laugh – that she really liked his laugh, and it made her laugh. She said that I have very caring eyes. These are both things that Isha has said about us. It is one thing to hear something like that from a friend, but from someone you have just met, well I guess that is a pretty good confirmation. I do not think there was any coaching, telling her things to say about us. :)

In 2000, Pat was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy. The family thought the cancer was gone, but recently it came out that it had not gone away. Pat had kept it a secret because she did not want people worrying. I do not really know many details, but from some things she said while we were there, it seemed she was trying to get things “in order” for when she passed. Despite that, she seemed in good spirits and decent health; I would not have guessed she was sick if I did not know otherwise. On August 8th she was at her grandson's (Isha's brother) wedding. Yesterday, August 14th, she passed away.

The timing seems so interesting to me. I am really glad I was able to meet her, if only briefly, and I am glad she was able to be at the wedding. Enjoy your loved ones and the little connections you make with others' loved ones.

Isha and her grandma Pat Lucas at the wedding August 8, 2008

Tagged: life / friends
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Photo Scavenger Hunt

Thursday 08.07.2008 01:28AM

For a couple weeks our friends have been on a “team-building” kick, dividing into random teams and competing in finding geocaches. It has been quite fun. This past week I figured I would try to switch things up and set up a photo scavenger hunt. This is one of those ideas that has been in the back of my head for ages but never gets past the occasional mention, “yeah, we should do that!”

So I set out a-googling for good photo scavenger hunt ideas. There are some heavy-duty scavenger hunts out there – such as the annual University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt that takes place over 4 days and has a list of about 300 items.

Assembling the list was quite fun. I geared it towards downtown Indianapolis so most of it could be achieved within a couple miles. I also kept the list secret until we started. I believe everyone enjoyed themselves and it was quite a success, so feel free to take ideas and try it yourself.

Here's some of the list along with some photos from the night. The full list is available in Adobe PDF format.

Come up with a team name, take a picture that visualizes or expresses it. – 4 points

Team Blue Steel, a la Zoolander.

A sign with a team member's name on it (or as part of it) – 4 points

Knock off the Y, there you have it. And yes, I have spiritual AND physical beauty ...ladies.

Re-enacting a scene from a Disney movie – 6 points

Cinderella.

The Lion King.

Entire team, each with a french fry in their nose – 5 points (5 bonus points if the fast food employee poses in the picture as well. 10 bonus points if the employee poses and puts a fry in their nose.)

Boo to those on my team who refused to do this one!

In front of a waterfall – 3 points

A sign that should have “...ladies” added to it – 3 points

That's right. I have the world's best ingredients ...ladies.

A statue's butt – 4 points

I was disappointed that none of the teams found a David Hasselhoff CD!

Tagged: life / friends
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The awesome weekend

Tuesday 06.10.2008 12:16AM

Now that summer is here and LOST is over, Thursday nights are freer for me and most of my friends. Instead of our usual viewing party, we made plans to hang out downtown. We went to Mo'Joes coffeehouse to get our caffeination, then walked along the canal while looking really cool – like we're in some TV show.

I was a bit concerned about being thrown into the canal. See, most of us enjoy using Twitter, but Lauren has always strongly resisted joining. For kicks, Ian and I conspired to set up an account for her and post Lauren-y things on it. When she found out, she was quite “upset” and said that I would be going for a swim in the canal. Thankfully, her bark was worse than her bite, at least in this instance. I did not go for a swim, but we had to at least pose a shot.

Ironically, she has actually started to use the Twitter account.

Then we took some self-timer, family vacation shots that turned out quite well.

Shane (the guy in the white shirt) we met at the last Indianapolis TweetUp and this was his first time hanging out with us. He seems like a cool guy, and I do not think we scared him too much, so he might come to future shindigs. The night ended up being its own TweetUp of sorts, since everyone there is on Twitter. There just were not as many laptops or geeky conversations about “social media.” :-]

On Friday the plan was to go see Grease at the IMA. They have summer film nights outside in their amphitheater, letting you bring in your own food and drinks, so it is quite fun. Unfortunately, the weather looked like it definitely was not going to cooperate, so I voted we watch the DVD instead. It probably comes as a shock to most, but Doug, Isha, and I had not seen Grease before. We all enjoyed it quite a bit. Then for our second feature we watched Kung Pow: Enter the Fist accompanied by copious amounts of laughter.

After we had exhausted the entertainment of the movies, the YouTubes, shown some leg, and re-enacted Mango from SNL, we decided to go to Denny's. I rode in the back, with the ladies.

Saturday rolled around, and by then my body was starting to get tired from all the activity. Well, and staying up late at Denny's. And that I'm just getting old. Anyway. Saturday evening the plan was to go to Tibbs Drive-In to see Kung Fu Panda and Iron Man. Thankfully the weather cooperated this time. We met another new person, Jeremiah's friend Asim or “Awesome”, if you so desire to pronounce it that way.

At this point, this post is getting quite long, and words don't quite do it all justice. About 500 photos were taken by various people, of which I have included a few favorites here. This was definitely one of the best weekends of the year so far, and Sunday was definitely a day of doing nothing, to recuperate.

Somewhere amidst all that, I got a date next Friday. Then Saturday is Death Cab for Cutie, which I'm quite excited to finally see for the first time. So yeah, next weekend should be awesome as well.

Tagged: life / friends / twitter
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